1. Field of the Invention
Embodiments relate to a light-emitting diode (LED) control system, and more particularly, to an LED lighting control system capable of controlling not only a lighting module supporting unidirectional communication, but also a lighting module supporting bidirectional communication, notifying a central control device of any fault or failure in the unidirectional communication protocol-based lighting module, and removing any delays in lighting control that may be caused by limited communication lines.
2. Description of the Related Art
The Digital Addressable Lighting Interface (DALI) standard has been used for illumination control systems. The DALI standard enables a digital communication lighting control system capable of meeting various user needs by allocating addresses to various combinations of lighting scenes. Referring to FIG. 1, the DALI standard has evolved from the Digital Multiplex (DMX)-512 standard for unidirectional communication to the DMX-512A or Remote Device Management (RDM) standard for bidirectional communication. Devices used in a lighting control system, such as a central control device or a light-emitting diode (LED) driver may not be compatible with one another if they use different communication protocols.
Lighting control systems can be applied to lightings for a large-scale space, such as lightings on the exterior walls of a building, streetlights, or lighting systems for concerts. The replacement of unidirectional communication protocol-based lighting modules with bidirectional communication protocol-based lighting modules may be highly costly, and thus, a lighting system capable of allowing existing lighting modules to be gradually replaced with new lighting modules is needed.
A lighting module, particularly, a light-emitting diode (LED) lighting module, generally includes a considerable number of LEDs, and may thus make it difficult to detect any faulty LED therefrom. Accordingly, a device capable of automatically detecting any faulty LEDs is needed.
In the meantime, most lighting modules use a serial or daisy-chain communication method. For example, according to the DMX-512 standard, signals are transmitted to a maximum of up to 512 channels. More specifically, a control signal may be transmitted to only one of the 512 channels after the transmission of the signals to all the 512 channels. That is, a predetermined channel to which the control signal is to be transmitted may receive the control signal only after the transmission of the signals to the 511 channels, thereby making it difficult to control a lighting system in real time.